Healing
by Veterization
Summary: Nick/Ellis oneshot Nick never healed him. Ellis was determined to find out why.


_Disclaimer_: I do not own Left 4 Dead 2.

Nick never healed him.

Ellis had taken a habit to paying attention to who Nick selectively decided to aid his health to in times of trouble when the zombies swarmed in too swiftly with too sharp of claws.

First, it was Rochelle, and Ellis excused her, because although he wasn't fond of being labeled as sexist, he was under the morality that women deserved priority over men, so he let it slide when Nick helped Rochelle first when she was down for the count.

Then, it was Coach. Ellis had seen the man lumber around. He was much more of a human cockroach than a plausible target for zombies, half part muscle and half part brick. It was a rare sight to be running through a zombie-infested swamp and find Coach lying on his back like a tired dog after chasing after a rabbit. Injuries never seemed to impact him very much, and he always stood up promptly after the blows he received. Still, although Ellis even considered it unnecessary, he had seen in his peripherals on his way to the nearest safe house Nick kneeling by a mildly disoriented Coach bleeding from his ear.

Ellis had been knocked into a wall by a boomer, ground into the floor by a bloodthirsty charger, choked on the aftermaths of a spitter's assault, had half of his calf ripped open by a screaming hunter, and sunken into a murky lake with a mouthful of blood and no more energy left to rescue himself, and never once after regaining his coherence did he ever find himself blinking at the face of Nick.

It had come to the point where Ellis couldn't help but wonder why Nick had such an aversion to the younger boy. He wasn't going to deny the existence of the glowers Nick tended to send in his way, or lack of any eye contact in the first place, but that still didn't mean he was aware of the reasoning behind them. Sometimes he came to the conclusion that Nick simply wasn't fond of him, wasn't fond of the way his voice sounded when his accent was thick, wasn't fond of the way he hoisted his guns up on his shoulders, wasn't fond of the way that once he started ranting, his throat found no need to stop, wasn't fond of the musky, Southern scent that followed Ellis around no matter how much blood his shirt soaked in.

He had considered simply asking Nick, since there was no room for bad blood between anyone when remaining on a polite level with the only humans left within miles was imperative to killing all of the sons of bitches currently reversing the well-maintained order in his life as fast as possible, but Ellis had no smart plan to approaching Nick and forming an intelligent question. Nick had a constant line on his face, nothing but a symbol of his distance to the society surrounding him, his well-rehearsed poker face, and it unnerved Ellis.

Ellis considered being voluntary bait for a witch in the corner of a zombie-inhabited shack and denying Rochelle and Coach's help. However, even after the constant, practically endless Hell of everyday war, Ellis still didn't have a death wish on his mind.

He had told himself repeatedly that he was looking too far into something much too trivial. He should be worrying about his well-being and the healing scar on his back and exactly how many lives he had left to gamble with, not who his nurse was when he found himself seeing red. Perhaps Nick was simply always elsewhere, fighting his own combat with an angry boomer, too busy on the other half of the carnival, too far away to hear Ellis' pleas for help through the thick brambles of the swamp greenery, or too damn cold-hearted to give his concern to the Southerner whose mere voice encouraged him to tear his own ears off with chainsaws.

Really, Ellis should ask him. It wasn't a hard question. He was overcomplicating the whole matter, making it awkward, as though he was inquiring to his mother about the safety of sex toys. Nick was a friend, a comrade, or at least a partner against crime, and Nick's lack of aspiration to retain Ellis' life long enough to see next month's full moon was a concern that Ellis believed was reasonable to have.

It had been a few weeks. Ellis hadn't said a word.

Then again, neither had Nick.

He would love to blame the apocalypse, leaving not much room for deep, thoughtful conversation, since once the team hit the safe house they were busy either reloading their ammo, throwing on bandages like car wreck victims, or curling up in a corner for a semi-undisturbed slumber to put their tortured minds at ease. And Ellis wasn't going to bother the older gambler during any of those tasks.

Perhaps it was because Nick always looked so serious. So professional. Like the whole apocalypse, the whole situation, was nothing but a higher-grade poker game. Nick was the only one who looked out of place during the massacre, his blazer crisp at the collar and his shoes had the shine of expensive footwear. Now his attire was tainted with the brown crust of dried blood and his shoes were scuffed after endless running through undergrowth, but he still resembled a businessman thrust into a World War after a conference, no matter how much of a gambler's foul play was buried under his concealed expressions. He held a politician's frown and never once seemed to show much emotion on his face, and it simply made him much less approachable than the people Ellis was used to. He was accustomed to people like Keith, always laughing, always talking, much like himself. Ellis would be damned if he'd hear a snicker escape Nick's lips directed at him before this whole kerfuffle would be over.

After more weeks still, Ellis was ready to let it go. He accepted the unspoken dislike Nick had for Ellis, avoiding the fact that Nick had never provided him with concrete evidence as to why he harbored abhorrence for the younger man. Ellis would have been sorry enough to attempt to fix his apparent mistakes that bothered Nick enough to cause him to glare at the man as though he was expired milk.

However, Ellis finally found his chance. Unwillingly.

All he knew was i_pain/i_. More than blood, more than muscle, more than bone, i_pain/i_.

Ellis wasn't foreign anymore to the feeling of death. He smelled it on his skin every time a zombie pounced on him and proved to be stronger than his arms were. The urgent, familiar pound of adrenaline in his ears immediately triggered the muse of whether or not this would be his i_last_/i moment of pain, the same thought Ellis had every single time. This time, however, Ellis saw no one in sight. His blurry eyes and the thin film of blood handicapping his vision could still descry that this time, he had no rescue.

A myriad of things were generated in Ellis' mind – whether out of habit or want for remembrance, Ellis wasn't sure anymore, and the foolish, silly things were triggered. Falling off of his father's roof when he was seven, driving a motorcycle into a lake when he was thirteen, getting to second base with a French foreigner in the backseat of his Toyota Camry on his seventeenth birthday, Keith, the first time he had sex, making biscuits from scratch, learning how to ride horses, playing with puppies, i_Nick_/i –

"Get offa him!"

For a nanosecond, Ellis was under the impression that Nick was off in the distance helping a Coach who was in a compromising position with a zombie, somehow managing to throw his voice for Ellis to hear it, and then he felt the zombie assaulting him promptly being knocked onto its side, only its now motionless legs still draped gracelessly over Ellis' knees. He blinked and shifted an arm. If he listened hard enough, Ellis could detect the soft, trickling sound of blood dripping off of his torso onto the damp ground beneath him. It was silent, freakishly silent, and Ellis wondered if his savior had been attacked himself and now they were both left to bleed to death as a zombie's afternoon meal.

"You still alive?"

Ellis blinked. He tried to identify the voice his eardrums were picking up, coarse, low, the unmistakable hint of exhaustion plaguing the tone.

"God, you're not dead, are you?"

Clearly, his thoughts were interrupting his ability to speak. The question finally sunk in, slowly, like a slow motion movie on a bad DVD player, and Ellis grunted through his throat to let out a rumble as proof of his life. It felt like ancient paper in his throat, as though his tongue had just suffered three hours of chain smoking. He blinked again, and then it was nothing but a blur of Nick peering over him.

"'Ello?"

Nick's hand made it to his shoulder. It seemed to be the only spot on Ellis' flesh not sore from the zombie's attack, and he murmured out a meek protest as Nick's hand wandered lower to hoist him up by the waist.

"You hurt bad?"

Ellis said nothing, remaining speechless as Nick pushed him into an upright position and kneeled by him, staring at the horizon line.

"Lookin' for something?" Ellis mumbled, and stared in mortification at the spot of shiny carmine growing on his shirt. He peeled up his shirt, practically hermetic to his skin thanks to the paste that had formed from sweat and blood and salt, clinging to his clothing. Nick swatted at his hands as though he was a foolhardy child poking at a fresh wound.

"Rochelle and Coach are too far away."

Ellis stared at the older man in disbelief, "Would ya just help me out already?" he growled, but it came out of his mouth as more of a moribund beg rather than an exasperated order, "got no first aid or what?"

Nick looked at him, almost a little skeptical of his skepticism, and reached timidly for the pack on his back, "…I got some."

"Then why don't ya–"

"I don't like touching you." Nick said, and began unwrapping the bandages from his bag nonetheless, eyeing the oozing wound on Ellis' stomach. He didn't even know how big his lacerations were, he just knew that there was much too much blood.

Ellis frowned, halfway because of the apprehensive prodding of Nick's thumb on his gash and halfway because of the indirect insult he wasn't sure he should take offense to or not. He bit back the obvious i_why_/i on his tongue, realizing he didn't even have any desire to hear the answer.

"Eh," he began, unsure of how to word his sentence or what words his sentence should even be obtaining, and he glanced at Nick's ear, "do you hate me or somethin'?"

Nick rubbed the bridge of his nose with exasperated fingertips and exhaled, still unpacking bandages. Ellis was sure that Nick was unpacking too much gauze, and whether he had underestimated his injuries or Nick wasn't even paying attention to his hands, he wasn't certain.

"No. I just…" Nick pinned his lower lip between his teeth and let it go a second later, his lip red and angry, "don't like touching you."

By now, Ellis had taken a generous load of offense. His legs weren't too uncultivated with the overgrowth of hair, his smile was pretty, his chest wasn't littered with ghastly boils, and his hands weren't rough with calluses. He knew he didn't have the curvature of a girl or the waist of a dancer, but he wasn't particularly discontent with his appearance nevertheless.

"I don't mind touchin' i_you_/i, Nick, you've barely ever helped me out when I was bleedin'."

For a moment, Nick looked mildly perturbed. He worried his lip again, glancing at Ellis, almost as if he was about to tell him to shush so he could concentrate on nursing Ellis back to health, but instead he let out another long-drawn sigh and unloaded yet more bandages.

"I just don't like it."

"Why not?"

"Would you just shut up already? This is more annoying than hearing you talk about Keith." Nick snapped, and finally advanced on Ellis' cut with his excess equipment.

Ellis smiled a grin completely devoid of any pain, completely avoiding Nick's command to be quiet, waving a hand around languidly, "Keith's a good fella, y'know. You'd like him if you met 'em."

"Shut up," Nick said again, a little firmer, and Ellis shut up. There was a detectable tone of anger hinting at the gambler's voice, and Ellis wasn't intent on peeving the man fiddling with the bloody mess that was his body at the current moment.

Ellis felt a hand tug on the hem of his pants, and his belt buckle gave way. His mind would normally instantly cup his zipper protectively away from Nick's invasive hands, but he was exhausted, very exhausted, the blood only contributing to his lack of coherency.

"What're ya doin'?"

"I'm surprised there's even skin left on your thigh. I'm cleaning it up."

Ellis managed a groaned response, wriggling out of his pant legs, remaining only in the wrinkly remains of his boxers, also tainted with the familiar stain of blood. Almost instantly, Nick's cold fingertips hit the skin of his thigh, numbing the pain of whatever injury he had managed to sustain on such an unreachable area. He squirmed, and Nick growled.

"Don't move. I i_only_/i want to hit your thigh."

"Is that why you don't like touchin' me or somethin'? I ain't gay, Nick, it's cool." He squirmed again, involuntarily this time, and Nick's knuckle brushed against Ellis' crotch. Instantly, Nick was on his feet.

"I said, stop moving."

"Whatcha gettin' all worked up for?" Ellis asked, almost unaware of the contact, staring mournfully at his bleeding thigh, "this ain't done, is it?"

"I said, I don't like touching you." Nick said again, this time with the stoic expression and stern tongue of a priest catching a young nun in a maintenance closet feeling up a minor. His shoes shuffled. Nick was still unspeakably professional, even through the dirty film on his clothing, everything controlled, everything but the pulse point on his neck. Ellis frowned.

"And the zombie apocalypse ain't no exception?"

Nick twitched, and Ellis celebrated an internal triumph under the realization that he was making more sense than the gambler. Slowly, as if it pained him to bend his knees, Nick kneeled next to him again and picked up his bandages as if they were catalysts for STDs.

"You don't have to be so damn difficult about it." Nick grumbled, disapprovingly, and Ellis' lips tugged into a smile.

"I don't try to be," he mumbled apologetically, "I don't want ya to hate me, Nick."

"I don't."

"You don't like touchin' me."

"Two different things."

There was a certain amount of stiffness compromising their conversation into one a rebel teenager might be forced to have with his grandmother over teatime, rigid, controlled, much too awkward. Boys in the locker room all over again. Ellis winced as Nick's thumb pushed straight where a claw had dug deep into his flesh.

"Sorry." Nick muttered, and Ellis twitched again.

"I think ya must be a homophobe of some sort," Ellis began rambling, mindlessly at best, "you don't like touchin' me even though I ain't that ugly and you jump 'way when you touch m'thigh."

"It's nothing." Nick dismissed.

"Nahh, it's not."

"Really, it's nothing."

"C'mon, Nick, it's weird," Ellis persisted, and formed a frown when Nick simply didn't bother to worthy his comment with a reply. He whined.

"Let it go, Ellis."

"It's like when Keith told me once in school, he told me that girls pretend to not like bein' touched just so the guys will like 'em. Never made any sense but we all did it anyway."

"This is nothing like that," Nick said, his fingertips working faster on Ellis' thigh, "don't listen to everything that Keith of yours tells you."

"Keith knows what's goin' on," the mechanic said, as though that justified all of his Keith quotations. Nick glared at him, but Ellis' tongue ignored him, still finding it unnecessary to speak, "I'd say you don't like touchin' me 'cause you wanna touch me more, but that makes no sense 'gain. And you ain't look like a queer or anythin' to me, Nick."

"Ellis."

"'Less you are a queer, in which case no offense meant–"

"i_Ellis_./i" It was a warning this time, like Ellis was a child who had misbehaved, and he promptly quieted, mouth curved into one silent, innocent 'o'.

"…sorry 'bout that," Ellis said, his voice small, and was about to form a more educated apology, long and drawn out, and stopped himself.

Nick stared. Nick stared more. Ellis wanted to be eaten by the weeds.

"This is just ridiculous," he muttered, more to himself than Ellis, who listened anyway, "it's like you're i_asking_/i me to touch you. Bleeding, and still obviously horny. I don't think it's funny at all, Ellis."

"Ehh."

"Shut up," Nick growled, and grabbed the nape of his neck, right where the hem of his hair tickled his skin, grip strong as he pulled Ellis straight to his lips, not a single ounce of hesitance breaking the movement. Nick was a gambler, twelve years older than Ellis, used to risks and clearly experienced with them, and Ellis, indeed, was nothing i_but_/i a risk.

And now Ellis realized he was expecting Nick's lips to hit his. If he pulled back, realized his stupidity, his lapse of logic, there would definitely be something missing to the already most ridiculous conversation ever had during a zombie apocalypse.

He didn't pull back. There wasn't even a chance.

Nick's lips weren't soft like a woman's. They were chapped and rough and unforgiving, intent on doing nothing but sucking and bruising for all of their sake. Ellis was already light-headed from the second the air between their lips whittled down into nothing but pressure, pressure, heat and pressure, and of course, tongues.

It was extremely inopportune to be sexually celebrating on the ground in the dead of night while zombies, most probably not entertained enough to halt their massacre by the sight of a spontaneous case of homosexual man love being had on the ground.

Ellis wondered, mildly, when an innocuous two-minute make out had turned into predetermined homosexual man love. He panicked.

Then, Nick's upper bunk of teeth nibbled away at his lower lip and Ellis was reminded that Nick's intentions were probably not as innocent as he had assumed.

In all candor, Ellis didn't even consider pulling away an option until just then, the metallic tang of blood smearing over his lower lip and ever-insistent teeth still working at parting Ellis' lips and giving way to the caverns of his mouth. He mustered enough self-control to yank himself away, not because he felt his hormones uprising and sizzling to a sudden death in the pit of his groin, but because he felt it to be an imperative to surviving. He didn't want to undress in front of a zombie, as a matter of fact, he didn't want to even flash his tongue right before it dove into Nick's mouth in front of zombies, and his public displays of affection with the older man were intensifying by the nanosecond. Nick's skin was already hot and bothered against his as he felt his forehead rest against his own, a heated pant fan over his nose.

"Eh – Nick,"

"Ellis," Nick replied, but his throat was only exhaling a few semi-coherent syllables, not really speaking. Ellis pushed a little at his shoulder bones when he realized that the opportunity to gain Nick's attention verbally was long gone.

"Hey, hey, not here?" It was more of a half-hearted offer than a command, but by now the consternation had settled in, side-by-side next to the rumbling in his groin, and now it was nothing but a choice between libido and survival. Regretfully at best, Ellis shoved and put his hormones on a temporary halt.

"Why not?" Nick's voice was low, coarse, post-kissing and gravelly as it left his esophagus, and Ellis felt an unsuppressed shudder rattle his spine. He whined, his own reasoning starting to not make any more sense to him as Nick crawled closer to little down the distance Ellis had managed to create with his feckless pushes.

"Don't wanna be killed, Nick. Zombies ain't gonna stop killin' just 'cause we're too busy to murder 'em back."

Nick stared at Ellis for a few seconds, as though deciding whether or not his words held any true value, and finally scratched thoughtfully at his chin with his fingernails, scooting back a little. There was still an undeniable radiation of heat, hot heat, hormonal heat, swelling off of his body in waves. Ellis swallowed, and prayed to keep everything in his body down.

"Coach and Rochelle–"

"Ya worried about them i_now_/i?" Ellis criticized, a little miffed, and Nick licked the frown right off of his face. Ellis blinked, and his tongue was gone again, as thought it was sexual discipline.

"No," Nick answered, much too bluntly, but Ellis didn't have time to admonish him as a hand jerked on his shoulder, ignorant of the injuries that held much more importance a few minutes ago, and pressed him against his chest as though he was a particularly fluffy pillow. Ellis felt the familiarity of what a newlywed wife might feel waking up, pressed against her husband's chest possessively, hands everywhere and clothing only donning the floor. Intimate, really, and Ellis couldn't do anything but blink as the grip Nick had on his waist tightened.

"Nick–"

"Yes or no?"

It was unclear, but words were not necessary and nor were they capable of being produced by either of the men, clouded by the ardency the apocalypse had prevented them from experiencing, and without even thinking about the consequences of his response, Ellis' head immediately shook up and down yes.

"I – yeah, yes."

"Good." A nod, another nod, from both of them, a poor form of reassurance but simple enough for them both. Nothing about this was complex, or had to be, and even though Ellis was swearing to remind himself that later, he'd address this issue – because he wouldn't ever be able to listen to Nick i_talk_/i again if they did go through with this – he knew that it wasn't anything worthy talking about in the first place. He wanted comfort, Nick wanted comfort, humanity, humanity they had all been lacking. Even Rochelle and Coach.

But to Hell with Rochelle and Coach right now.

"Where we goin'?"

"Anywhere, not here. Safe house." Nick said, and Ellis didn't know when the gambler had started panting. Then again, he had too. He didn't want to think about panting. Panting was like pants, and pants was like no pants, and no pants was a thought not helping ease away the enthusiasm the bulge in his pants was already evidence enough of.

He was still pressed up against Nick's chest like a jealous lover clutching to their rightfully owned property, the bitter night doing nothing to cool down Ellis' damp shirt. The blend of the blood and accumulating sweat wasn't helping the odor radiating off of his body either, but then again, Nick didn't smell of businessman cologne either, and stenches didn't seem to bother him when his tongue was down Ellis' throat.

They had all weakened a generous amount, their muscles aching and medicine wearing low, but Nick had a startling amount of adrenaline to haul Ellis off to the nearest safe house at speeds Ellis wouldn't have been able to carry himself at, with or without blood still trickling out of his wounds. He clutched back at Nick, just as possessively. Nick remained wordless.

"Heya, Nick, this has nothin' to do with me being a guy, does it–"

Nick fumbled to open the handle of the safe house. Ellis was almost astonished that they hadn't run into an angry Rochelle and Coach in desperate need of backup and full of complaints to make at Nick and Ellis' lack of helpfulness on the way. However, Ellis was far from complaining about the ideal situation as he felt Nick push him into the shack and the door shut behind them a second later.

"Does it i_look_/i like I mind?"

"I dunno, Nick, ya just horny as Hell?" Hypocritical, hypocritical, hypocritical, Ellis' mind chanted, and he shushed it instantly.

"Something like that," Nick shrugged, his jacket slipping off of his shoulders in the process, two fingertips pushing against Ellis' lips once his arms rid themselves of the sleeves, "but it's your own fault. Tell me, Ellis, do you ever stop talking?"

Ellis was going to find a response, but his tongue couldn't think of one, as Nick's mouth instantly occupied it.

"Goin' fast, huh?"

Nick pulled away for a moment, blinking at Ellis as though he was attempting to examine the meaning of his words in the first place, whether or not they were a mere test or a capricious case of effeminacy emitting from Ellis, right before shrugging carelessly and attaching his mouth onto the younger man's once again. He didn't merit Ellis' nonsensical babbles with responses anymore, and for the first time, Ellis didn't complain.

By now, Ellis wondered where all of this concealed experience was coming from as Nick continued to take control of the situation, the blatant tone of pent-up aggression in his hands as Nick worked on the hem of Ellis' shirt, tugging it over Ellis' resisting chin.

Ellis wasn't all too homosexually educated. He knew the basics of the anatomy in his pants – he had masturbated before – but there wasn't ever an extra hand in his pants with him. Everything Ellis did know Keith had told him when he had been thoroughly inebriated, despite Ellis' protests, never under the impression that his knowledge of the subject would reemerge later in his lifetime.

Ellis was never one to consider himself gay, let alone, label himself at all, but there was no denying the ardency his flushed cheeks and bruised red lips could prove all on their own, and it certainly wasn't the self-induced pleasure Ellis would experience from jacking off on his toilet seat.

Nick's hands moved to his increasingly tighter pants and fumbled at his waistband. Ellis whined.

"Coach and Rochelle could walk in, ya know–"

"Whatever, Overalls,"

His voice had officially been abolished in Nick's priorities, but it wasn't as if Ellis was an eighteen-year-old virgin in the backseat of a horny teenager's car. It wasn't as if being caught was even an obstacle in his mind, but still felt the need to voice it out of the pure worriment that i_this was Nick_/i straddling him with the most inopportune timing in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, a thirty-five-year-old man who had already lost a shirt and was in the middle of de-pantsing himself.

It was a shame that Ellis had never found himself more turned on before in his lifetime, and that included Keith running on a treadmill on a Sunday morning in his underwear and a thin sheen of sweat on his shoulders.

"What are you staring at?"

"You," Ellis answered mindlessly, and adjoined with a groan straight from Nick's lips, Ellis' pants shimmied off of his calves and slid straight onto the floor.

"You say this kind of stuff on purpose, Ellis? Fucking God." Nick's lips found their way to Ellis' neck, the rough brush of untamed stubble coarse on his jugular as Nick's chin grazed his throat. Ellis slid his hands to the gambler's shoulders and directed the attention of Nick's tongue back to his lips.

"Someone needs to roll a lawnmower over your face, Nick," Ellis murmured, but there was no peeved arrogance tainting his voice as he started tackling the project of Nick's attire, still comfortably attached to his body, and getting it on the ground.

There was a certain amount of paroxysm, completely ineffable, rather uncontrollable ardor, that racked through Ellis' body when he felt Nick's nimble tongue twist around his own and legs wrap around his hips. A i_man_/i, a manly man without a woman's curvature or a girl's always neatly combed hair, probably one of the worst choices when it came to Ellis' gay radar. Nick? The gambler with a handy aim, Nick? Ellis wasn't thinking anymore.

There was a blink in which the touches stopped, and then there was an impatient palm on Ellis' now bare chest and the other snaking into his pants, and as much as Ellis would love to admit that he was falling into the vestiges of pleasure and all of it was only blurs in his pupils, but he was all too aware of his surroundings. He would love to confess that it was too much pleasure, but he almost felt as if it would never be enough. And then Nick's hand moved, and Ellis changed his mind.

"N-Nick, c'mere."

Nick grunted as though moving pained his body but still managed to twist his position, scooting closer to Ellis until their chests were bumping.

There was an indescribable amount of wrong, ardency, and heat fusing between their lips as they touched again, rough, teeth grinding, tongues rubbing. The room smelled of zombie apocalypse sex, and Ellis wondered if any amount of blood would i_ever_/i cause enough stench to override the unmistakable scent of sex, bloody, deadly, homosexual zombie sex.

The whole ordeal wasn't being very nice on his injuries, but Ellis didn't care if he kept bleeding. Just pleasure was enjoyable, but pleasure and pain was undeniable i_heat_/i. Ellis' fingers found their way to Nick's shoulders, scratching down his back in an attempt to merely hold on, and Nick only grunted again, finding Ellis' lips once more. And once more. And one more time.

God, this was so ridiculous. Ellis remembered times when he stumbled down staircases, fell into rosebushes side by side with Keith, ate two-month-expired birthday cake just to test the resistance of his stomach, and ditched his boxers to wear woman's underwear for a whole day based on a drunken dare, but never had he been in a situation quite as baffling as this. He had always considered himself generally straight, but with Nick's hand pumping up and down on his erection and never stopping, never stopping, he was beginning to question his orientation.

Nick's thumb was starting to become the criminal of it all, still rubbing, still working, more of a torture instrument than an appendage. Ellis had never been gladder to be rid of his pants as Nick's hand fisted his erection and there was nothing holding him back anymore from bucking his hips into it.

Really, it was over much too fast. Ellis found his throat sore of words but still capable of a cry within the next minute, chest slumped and nose finding its home within the crook of Nick's neck, damp with sweat and still pulsing. For a second he was almost concerned if he had taken control of the situation with his own pleasure in mind, but then he felt the thrust of Nick's hips against his two more times before Nick's body shook with tremors much like his own did. He grinned against the older man's shoulder and bit it playfully before Nick could pull away from their sweaty mass of entwined limbs.

Eventually, both men peeled themselves away from each other, heavy pants and the unspoken air of i_what now_/i and i_can't even believe we went that far_/i lingering around the crowns of both of their heads. Nick finally glanced at Ellis in the hope of a few seconds of eye contact having the ability to decipher what both of them were thinking, but Ellis' eyelids were still half-mast and lidded.

"H-hey," Ellis muttered, and reached blindly for Nick's hands, managing to interlace their thumbs languidly, "that was fun."

Nick looked at him, "Yeah. Fun."

"Fun enough to do again?" Ellis opened his eyes. Nick was sprawled in the corner almost as if he was a sleazy advertisement for a love motel, but it wasn't quite as sleazy when Ellis realized that he had himself to thank for Nick's current state. Ellis smiled, goofily at best, and tugged on Nick's thumb as he waited for a reply.

"Yeah, Overalls. I think so."

From then on, Nick didn't let anyone else but himself heal Ellis.

Ellis wasn't complaining.


End file.
